> A content gap is a search your competitors answer and you do not. How to find yours with free tools, choose which to close first and build pages that compete. - Canonical: https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/how-to-find-content-gaps/ --- # How to find content your competitors have and you do not A content gap is a search your competitors appear for and you do not, because they have a page that answers it and you have none. Finding the gaps needs only their websites, Google and your own Search Console. Updated 13 October 2026 ## 1. Read their site structure A competitor’s menu and sitemap list what they have chosen to build pages for. Most sites publish a sitemap at `/sitemap.xml`. Open it, group the pages by subject, and mark every subject you have no page for. Searching Google for `site:` followed by their domain shows roughly which of those pages Google has indexed. ## 2. Search the way a customer would Take ten searches a customer would make before buying, and note who appears and with which page. Read the “People also ask” box and the related searches at the foot of the results. Each one is a question real people ask, and your site either has a page that answers it or does not. ## 3. Read your own near-misses Search Console’s Performance report has an average position figure. Switch it on and filter for positions greater than 10. The searches left are those where Google already considers your site relevant but places it on the second page or lower. For each one, find the page that should be answering. It is usually thin, off the subject or missing. ## 4. Check what answer engines cite Ask ChatGPT the questions customers ask in your market, or read Google’s AI Overview for them, and note which sites are cited. A competitor cited there has a page that states the answer plainly. The method is set out in [how to check if ChatGPT recommends your business](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/does-chatgpt-recommend-your-business/). ## Choose which gaps to close first A gap is worth a page only when three things are true. - Someone making the search could become a customer. - You are already close: the second page of results is closer than nowhere. - You can say something the pages already ranking do not. Gaps that pass all three come first. A gap that fails the first is traffic with no business in it. ## Build the page to compete One subject per page, with the answer in the first paragraph and headings that match the questions people ask. Link to the new page from the pages around it, so that visitors and search engines can both find it. Then note the date, and watch the search in Search Console over the following weeks. ## Questions people ask ### What is a content gap analysis? A content gap analysis compares the searches your competitors' pages appear for with the searches yours appear for. The difference is a list of subjects where they have an answer and you do not. ### How many competitors should I compare against? Three is enough to start. Choose the sites that appear most often for the searches you want, which are not always the businesses you think of as rivals. ### Should I copy what my competitors have written? No. Take the subject and leave the page. A page that only repeats what already ranks gives a search engine no reason to prefer it, so add what theirs lacks: detail, evidence, prices, examples or a clearer answer. ## Free competitor gap report Listing gaps by hand takes days. Name up to three competitors and we measure the content they are found for against yours, then send you the gaps in the order they are worth closing. 1. Speed and technical health, side by side 2. On-page SEO and site structure 3. The content they are found for and you are not 4. Who holds the searches that matter in your market 5. A prioritised list of what to fix first [Request your free report by email](mailto:contact@hadalmedusa.com?subject=Competitor%20gap%20report%3A%20Guide%3A%20How%20to%20find%20content%20your%20competitors%20have%20and%20you%20do%20not&body=Website%3A%0D%0A%0D%0AWhere%20you%20compete%20(area%2C%20country%20or%20countries)%3A%0D%0A%0D%0ACompetitors%20to%20compare%20against%20(up%20to%20three)%3A%0D%0A%0D%0AAnything%20else%20we%20should%20know%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A) - **Address** — contact@hadalmedusa.com - **Include** — your site; up to three competitors; where you compete ## More guides - [Why a competitor outranks you, and how to check](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/why-a-competitor-outranks-you/) - [What a technical SEO audit covers](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/what-a-technical-seo-audit-covers/) - [A local SEO checklist for UK businesses](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/local-seo-checklist-uk/) - [All guides](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/) - [On-site SEO: what the service includes](https://hadalmedusa.com/services/seo/)