Define the goal first

Decide what the analysis should do before collecting keywords. Most teams need to know which pages to create, which existing pages to improve, and which topics should be ignored for now.

A good analysis connects search opportunity to business value. If a topic cannot support a product, service, category, or sales question, it should not automatically enter the first queue.

Collect the competitor set

Start with direct competitors, search competitors, and category publishers that already rank for buyer questions in your market.

Direct competitors show how similar companies position the offer. Search competitors show which pages Google rewards, even when the publisher is not a business rival. Both views matter.

Compare coverage

List the pages competitors have that your site lacks, then group them by intent:

  • Educational guides.
  • Comparisons.
  • Alternatives.
  • Implementation pages.
  • Pricing context.
  • Product-led topics.

Do not only record the keyword. Record what the page actually does for the reader: define a term, compare options, explain a process, reduce risk, or move someone toward a buying decision.

Visual explanation

A useful gap table ends in a page decision

Competitor content-gap matrix example A fictional clinic-software example connects buyer questions and competitor coverage to missing pages and a three-item publishing priority. No traffic score is used. FICTIONAL CLINIC SOFTWARE SAMPLE · NO INVENTED TRAFFIC SCORE BUYER QUESTION INTENT COMPETITOR PATTERN PAGE DECISION How do I compare booking tools? Compare 3 sites answer it Create comparison guide What changes for clinic staff? Learn 2 workflow guides Create workflow guide How long does setup take? Reduce risk 2 setup pages Create implementation page What is appointment automation? Define Answer exists, ours is buried Refresh definition page PRIORITY QUEUE 1 · Comparison 2 · Workflow 3 · Implementation Priority follows buyer question + visible coverage + page role. It does not predict traffic or rankings.
Fictional clinic-software example showing method and fields. It does not include invented volume, difficulty, traffic, or ranking estimates.

Review your own site

A gap is not always a missing page. Sometimes the right answer is one of four fixes:

  • Expand an existing page.
  • Merge overlapping pages.
  • Rewrite a weak article.
  • Add internal links from stronger pages.

Check whether the current page has the right intent, enough depth, a clear title, useful headings, and a path back to the commercial page it should support.

Prioritize the gaps

Prioritize pages where search demand, competitor coverage, and business relevance overlap. That is where new content has the clearest job.

A simple scoring model can use four questions: do buyers search this, do competitors answer it, is our current page missing or weak, and does the topic support a priority offer?

Turn findings into briefs

The final output should be a short briefing queue. Each item should name:

  • The article.
  • The buyer question.
  • The intended page format.
  • The internal links.
  • The reason it should be written now.

This prevents the analysis from becoming a research artifact that never turns into published pages.

How we sourced this guide

This is practitioner guidance, not a study. It reflects how Gadex runs content production across the sites it operates, checked against the current public documentation of the search and answer engines it describes. There is no proprietary dataset behind it and no sample to cite.

Where a platform’s behaviour is stated, it is drawn from that platform’s own documentation at the time of the update shown above — search and AI systems change without notice, so verify anything you are about to act on. Where a claim could not be supported, it is framed as our practice rather than as fact. See our methodology and editorial standards for how pages are researched, reviewed, and corrected.

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Published by Gadex, the SEO and AI-search content service operated by ALPHAOSCAR EURL. Every guide follows our editorial standards — sourced, fact-checked, and reviewed before publishing. About Gadex.