Content Gap Analysis: Your Strategy for Capturing Competitors' Traffic

Your competitors are stealing YOUR traffic right now. Here's the sneaky strategy to take it back and dominate your niche.

I don't want to sugarcoat this... your competitors are capturing traffic that could (and should) be yours. They are ranking for keywords that you're not ranking for. They are answering questions that your audience is asking, and you aren't answering them.

Fortunately, this can change. It can change with a content gap analysis.

What Is Content Gap Analysis?

To put it simply: content gap analysis is like being an SEO detective. You are attempting to discover which topics your audience is searching for, but isn't available on your site. The gap is what your audience wants, and what you've provided.

A gap in your content occurs when:

• your competitors are ranking for valuable keywords and you are not,
• your audience is asking questions that you're not answering,
• you are completely missing topic clusters relevant to your niche,
• you are lacking depth in your content versus the top ranking pages.

The practice of content gap analysis is scanning the internet for relevant topics you haven't covered, or covered better, in order to shyly call attention to your online presence.... that's it.

The Importance of Conducting a Content Gap Analysis for Your Organization

Stop guessing what content to create next. Companies that use content gap analysis see a 20-50% increase in traffic in six months. That's not luck. It's a process.

Here are the ways you win when you do this right:

You are more discoverable. You have discovered new topics to write about, and you improved content that you had already had. You will be showing up in more search results, because you are more visible. More visibility means more clicks.

You steal your competitors' traffic. If you do a better job than your competitors at writing about the same topic, their traffic becomes yours. If you answer your audience's questions better than the competition, it will be your traffic.

You stop wasting your time. No more brainstorming sessions that don't go anywhere! No more "let's pencil this" or "it will happen down the road." You will have facts to rely on, to produce more relevant content.

You get results. Becoming a better writer increases engagement and, ultimately, conversions. Traffic means nothing without it leading to sales.

How to Perform a Content Gap Analysis (A Beginner's Guide)

Let's get down to the nitty gritty. If you're wondering how to discover where you are missing content in your niche, here's exactly how to do that!

Step 1. Prepare Your Tools

You don't need a lot of money to accomplish this task. But you do need the proper tools:

• Google Search Console (Free): Displays what keywords you actually rank for
• Google Keyword Planner (Free): Displays keyword ideas and search volumes
• Paid SEO Tools: Ahrefs, Semrush, or SE Ranking reduce the pain of manual investigation of all the websites

These tools will help you identify topics, keywords, and external strategies that your competitors are successfully using that you can use too.

Step 2. Identify Your True Competitors

This is one of the most common mistakes made in content gap analysis. Your competitors as a business are not always your SEO competitors. Your true SEO competitors are websites that consistently rank for the keywords you want to rank for.

You can start with only two or three competitors, maybe four. Any more than that and you'll drown in information. Select websites that:

• Rank in the top 10 for your ideal keywords
• Have a similar authority score to yours
• Write about your niche of content regularly

Step 3: Conduct the Analysis

Utilize tools such as Semrush’s Keyword Gap to compare your domain to your competition and identify keywords they rank for that your domain does not. This will allow you to identify your opportunities almost immediately.

You will likely see hundreds to thousands of keyword gap results. Don’t lose your mind. Filter aggressively:

• Create an initial filter for keyword difficulty of 30 or less (identify the easier opportunities first).
• Set a minimum search volume of 20 searches per month.
• Remove branded competitors from the list.
• Focus on keywords that appear in the top 20 ranking positions.

These simple filters can easily shrink your list by 90% or more and leave you with opportunity keywords.

Step 4: Score and make your prioritization

Not every opportunity is worthy of your attention. Score each keyword on:

Search volume: larger search volume equals more potential traffic Relevance: Does this relate to my products or services? Business potential: Will this attract browsers or buyers?

For example, for our rating purposes, score each keyword 1-5 on relevance and business potential. Look at all scores together to consider overall search volume, relevance and business potential.

Step 5: Create your action plan

Now you have data. It’s time to turn it into content. To avoid a duplicate content signal in your domain, take a look at related keywords to create topic clusters. For priority keywords, consider doing the following:

• Update content if you rank on page 2-3.
• **Create new content if you have zero content on the topic.
• Build pillar pages for major topic clusters with supporting articles

The Four Types of Content Gaps

Content gap analysis includes way more than just keywords. Here are the gaps that present the biggest opportunities:

Keyword Gaps

Keywords gaps are where your competition ranks for keywords you do not. These represent low-hanging fruit opportunities. Find them, target them, win them.

Topic Gaps

When competitors have built, and we mean a full-blown content cluster surrounding, a topic and you've barely mentioned it. Topic gaps diminish your topical authority.

You remedy this through pillar content and supportive cluster content.

Format Gaps

Often, it is as much about how you say something instead of what you say (or will be important for you to do one day, video). Perhaps the audience wants instructional videos, or calculators, or templates, or podcast episodes, instead of just blog articles.

Research what formats rank for the keywords you are targeting. If there are videos in the top ranking positions and you are writing blogs, this gap can be a strong opportunity for your brand.

Funnel Gaps

You have a missing gap of content that supports users during specific stages of their buyer's journey. You must have content that support user awareness, consideration, and decisions.

Top of Funnel: "How to" guides and educational content Middle of Funnel: Comparison articles, "best of" article lists, Bottom of Funnel: Case studies, pricing pages, product demo content

Realistic Best Practices

Map keywords to your buyer journey. Just because a competitor is going after a keyword does not mean it will generate leads or sales for you. Think of intent strategically.

Do a content inventory first. You may already have content on a related topic that is just not ranking. You don’t want to end up with duplicate content by mistake.

Analyze annually. Annual analysis lets you stay on top of changing trends, audience needs, and updates in the field. Go ahead and set a reminder right now.

Focus on quality over quantity. Google prioritizes content that answers users' questions and elaborates on details. One in-depth article is better than five shallow articles.

Monitor and adapt. Track rankings for your new content. Keep an eye out for a drop in visibility so you can investigate the issue right away. You can't just set your SEO and forget it.

Are You Ready to Crush Your Competition?

Content gap analysis has become non-negotiable. This is the way of competition in 2025. If done correctly, you will uncover opportunities, improve your content strategy, and create content that ranks.

The data is telling you this. Your competitors have already shown you've what works. Now you have to just do it better than they did.

Stop leaving your traffic on the table. Stop guessing at what to write about. Start proving content gap analysis and building a data-backed strategy that works.

Ready to take your SEO strategy to the next level? Go to MaxRankr.com to learn about the incredible tools and insights that could help crush your competition and dominate search rankings. Let's turn those content gaps into traffic wins.