Site Explorer (Legacy Reports)
How to use the Content Gap report
The Content gap report shows you the keywords where one or more websites, URLs, or subsections rank for, but another target doesn’t.
Here are some actionable use cases for this report.
See the keywords that your competitors rank for, but you don't
Enter up to ten competing websites in the top section, then your domain in the bottom section.
The "At least one of the targets should rank in top 10" toggle is on by default to enhance relevance. Feel free to turn it off to expand the pool of results.
Hit “Show keywords”.
Right away, you can see that there are 5,956 keywords where at least one competing site ranks in the top 10, but ahrefs.com doesn't rank in the top 100.
Looking for hyper-relevant results? Use the All Intersections filter to only show keywords where multiple or all competing websites rank.
Not sure who your competitors are? Click on the Organic Competitors report to see which websites rank for the same keywords as you.
Fill content gaps in existing content
Google aims to deliver searchers the most relevant results. To show that you deserve a place in the top ranking search results, your content needs to be comprehensive.
Content Gap can help expose missed keyword opportunities that can be further covered as subtopics in your content.
To illustrate this, we’ll go with our “guest blogging” page and check the SERP for this keyword.
Once inside the SERP overview, check the boxes of a few relevant top-ranking pages and choose Open in Content Gap.
This will add all selected pages to Content Gap without having to manually paste them.
Here, we see other competing lists of marketing ideas ranking for 112 keywords where we don't.
Some of these keywords represent relevant subtopics that we missed out and may want to cover.
Create outlines for new posts fast
Targeting a particular keyword but have no idea what to write about? Use Content Gap to help uncover important subtopics that you may want to include.
To do this, copy and paste the URLs of a few relevant top-ranking pages for your target keyword in the top section. Leave the bottom section blank.
Hit “Show keywords”.
From this, we can infer that if you were to write a review of the Nintendo Switch, you would probably want to cover subtopics like:
- How does the Nintendo switch work
- Is the Nintendo switch worth it
- Nintendo switch graphics
And so on.
Our advice here isn't to "sprinkle relevant keywords throughout your post" but rather to sift through the Content Gap report looking for keywords that infer topics. You should then write about those in your content to increase its comprehensiveness.
Keep learning
Check out this video to learn how to do an effective content gap analysis:
Or check out some of the articles on the Ahrefs blog to learn about keyword research and content creation:
- How To Do Keyword Research for SEO
- What Are Long-tail Keywords? How to Find and Use Them
- How to Write a Blog Post in 9 Steps (That People Actually Want to Read)
- SEO Copywriting: 12 Easy Tips for Better Content and Higher Rankings
- Evergreen Content: What It Is, Why You Need It and How to Create It
- Content Creation: The Complete Guide for Beginners
- Content Writing for SEO: How to Create Content that Ranks in Google