A content gap is a topic or search your buyers care about that your site doesn’t cover yet, usually found by comparing your rankings with competitors’. Content gap analysis turns those missing topics into a list of pages to build, ordered by how close each search is to a buying decision.
Most content gap analysis now misses where buyers find answers. Standard gap tools compare which keywords you and your competitors rank for in Google. AI answers don’t follow those rankings. Ahrefs found that on average only 12% of links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot rank in Google’s top 10 for the same prompt. A competitor can appear in AI answers on topics where it ranks for nothing, and a ranking gap report will never show it.
Types of content gap
| Gap type | What it compares | How to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword gap | Searches competitors rank for and you don’t | Ahrefs or Semrush gap reports |
| Funnel gap | Stages of the buying journey you don’t cover, such as comparisons or pricing questions | Map existing pages against each stage |
| Sub-question gap | Follow-up questions around a topic that your pages don’t answer | Expand each main topic into the questions buyers ask next |
| AI citation gap | Buyer questions where AI tools cite competitors and not you | Run buyer questions in ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity on a schedule |
The sub-question gap matters more since AI search arrived. Google’s documentation says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a “query fan-out” technique, running several related searches across subtopics to build one answer. A page that covers the main question but none of its follow-ups leaves the follow-ups to someone else.
What a gap analysis produced at BroadConnect
During my time at BroadConnect Canada, a business phone and internet provider, gap analysis in Semrush and Ahrefs showed competitors ranking for local and service searches we had no pages for. We built location-based landing pages and service pages to cover them, and those pages generated more than 44,900 additional organic clicks over 12 months. The gaps weren’t exotic topics. They were the plain commercial searches buyers in each city were already typing.
Where gap analysis goes wrong
A gap report tells you what competitors cover, not what your buyers need. Follow it blindly and you rebuild a competitor’s content plan, including their mistakes. Filter every gap through two questions before building anything. Does this search come from someone who could buy from you? And can you answer it better than the page that ranks now, with your own data or experience? If not, it’s a gap worth leaving.
Running a content gap analysis
- Pick three to five competitors that win your deals, not the biggest names in the category.
- Pull keyword gaps from Ahrefs or Semrush and remove anything with no buying intent.
- Group what’s left into topics, so one page answers a cluster of searches.
- Add the sub-questions and comparison searches the tools under-report.
- Check AI answers for your top buyer questions and note who gets cited.
- Rank the list by buying intent first and search volume second.
Common mistakes
- Treating every keyword a competitor ranks for as a gap you need to fill.
- Ranking the list by search volume alone, which pushes informational topics ahead of commercial ones.
- Building one thin page per keyword instead of one strong page per topic.
- Ignoring AI answers, where the gap may be widest.
Related terms
Topical authority · Content silo · Search intent for B2B · Comparison page · Generative engine optimisation
